Just keep in mind it was written 13 years ago—in photographic terms, a different era! —JH

Recently [1998, remember!], for the first time in nearly 30 years, "To Kill a Mockingbird" played on network television. The movie, based on Harper Lee’s true-to-life novel, starred Gregory Peck as a principled small-town southern lawyer who was chosen—conscripted, actually—to defend an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. Watching this film, I found myself completely absorbed in the heartrending and ultimately tragic story. It felt almost as if I had entered the lives depicted, people whom I’d come to regard as more real than the usual Hollywood cast of on-screen fictional characters. In retrospect I realized that the film’s transformative power had as much to do with the medium as the message: this tale of blacks forced to live by white rules had been told in painfully revealing shades of gray—as seen through the lens of childhood innocence.

In 1962, color was already dominant in motion pictures. Even then, to shoot a film in black and white represented a conscious creative choice—and in this instance, clearly the correct one. It brought to mind such 1940s classics as "Citizen Kane" and "The Maltese Falcon." Now, these many years later, there can be little question that color is king in the world of photography: black and white has virtually disappeared from cinema screens, as indeed it has from television and, in still photography, from the pages of most popular magazines.

True, black and white still thrives in the darkrooms of many so-called fine-art photographers, and of course among the cognoscenti who read such journals as Camera Arts, but by and large black-and-white photography seems to be going the way of the magnificent Bengal tiger: an endangered species, admired for its beauty, respected for its power, prized as a trophy—and condemned to an increasingly circumscribed life (in zoos and preserves) to ensure its survival, not to mention humankind’s continued viewing pleasure.

Please understand that I, too, photograph almost exclusively in color—Kodachrome [in 1998, again!] to be exact, at least when conditions permit. And this from someone who is so "color impaired" that he has a hard time telling green from blue socks, and frequently finds he's left the house in the morning wearing one of each! (Last night my wife and I engaged in a lively discussion about a sweater she was wearing. I said it was dark brown, she said it was charcoal gray. Today, in bright morning light, I had to admit she was right, of course.)

For me, color is sufficiently elusive and mysterious that it has become one of my primary photographic subjects: its form, its shape, its hue, its texture, its interaction with light and, most especially, the illusions it creates on film. Garry Winogrand, a celebrated black-and-white practitioner, said he photographed to see what something looked like photographed. I suppose I share essentially the same philosophy, except that I often photograph to see how the color I think is there translates into the color the camera insists is there, as rendered on a particular roll of film. Of course, in no case is the final result reality.

And now, with the ease that digital manipulation offers in today’s increasingly computerized environment, color has become even more dominant. For example, where my predilection for using transparency film once mandated making internegatives in order to produce color prints—a difficult and never quite satisfactory compromise—I now simply pop my slides into my trusty Minolta scanner and, using Photoshop on my Mac, "print" to the screen and, if the spirit so moves me, ultimately to paper. No darkroom, no chemicals, no enlarger, no filter packs. Applying basic techniques I learned when doing midnight press okays for magazines, I find I have all the tools I need to change color, contrast, saturation and brightness to my heart's content. Again, the objective is not reality, but simply a good picture—verisimilitude, the appearance of truth.

William Clift, Volcanic Dike Shiprock, New Mexico, 1998

When it comes to describing the world in more objective terms, however—particularly when documenting the human condition—the editor in me still believes that black and white done the old fashioned way, wet-processed negatives expertly printed out by hand and eye, is by far the more appropriate medium. It can be no accident, for example, that of the 20 photographers—14 men, six women—who [again, up to 1998] have received the annual W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, one of photojournalism’s highest honors, only two proposed photographing their projects in color (and only one of those, in my opinion, deserved serious consideration).

Being less literal, black and white, in my experience, actually offers the possibility of greater accuracy. Years ago, I remember being given the opportunity to examine an early mockup of Philip Jones Griffiths’ condemnation of war, Vietnam Inc., now regarded to be a classic of its genre. The photographs I saw, some in all their gory detail, were in color, as originally shot. When the book was finally published, however, the photographs were reproduced in black and white. The photographer had evidently decided that his horrific story would be best told symbolically. History has shown him to be right.

Photography is no less a language than its written and/or spoken verbal counterpart. Surely, photography is more universal, transcending countries, continents and cultures. Images, the individual components of a photographic essay, for instance, combine in somewhat the same way that letters of the alphabet do, forming, not words and sentences, but sequences that come together in meaningful ways to spell out visual stories of sometimes awesome power.

Black-and-white photography has a grammar of its own. Indeed, there is a certain poetry in black and white that color seems to lack. Consider the landscapes of Ansel Adams, Bruce Barnbaum, William Clift, Michael Smith or John Sexton. Now try to visualize any of their beautifully expressive black-and-white prints in the colors of nature. They didn’t see their pictures that way, and neither should we. For these photographers, I submit, color would be a distraction. Yet when seasoned viewers read those same pictures, their minds do the translation for them, filling in the blanks with a kind of subliminal color. Call it audience participation. Or simply imagination. For me, at least, it is this thought process, this reading between the lines, this need to reexamine and interpret the essential elements of an image, that sets black-and-white photography apart from color.

All language is abstraction, the representation of what we see, know and feel in a form that may be understood by others. Photography, too, is abstraction, a visual distillation that manifests itself in a complex tapestry of signs and symbols. My two eyes see in three dimensions; a camera’s lens records what it "sees" in two dimensions. It is up to me, the viewer of the final photograph, to make whatever conversions are necessary to combine the photographer’s intentions with my sensibilities: to reinterpret, if you will, the original interpretation.

Do your eyes a favor tonight. Rather than continuing to subject them to the ubiquitous and mindless bombardment of electronic rainbows, tune your television to your favorite dramatic series and turn off the color for at least the next hour. Slowly but surely, I submit, that rectangle of light will again become a transparent window on the world. Content will replace cacophony. Cross over if you can, and rediscover the subtle strength of black and white. Then apply any lessons learned to your own photography.

Jim

Jim Hughes, founding editor of the original Camera Arts and former editor of Camera 35 and the Photography Annual, is the author of W. Eugene Smith: Shadow & Substance, Ernst Haas in Black and White, and The Birth of a Century.

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Featured Comment by Wayne: "Earlier in my career, I was frequently required to visit various buildings and businesses for the purpose of gathering information for insurance underwriting purposes. As part of the evaluation process I was required to submit photos of every side of a building or property. In instances where properties were in a poor state of repair or a housekeeping problem existed, color photos always made the conditions look less severe than they were. In extreme cases, I would include notes to let the underwriter know that the live view was considerably worse than that conveyed by the photos. One day, by virtue of the fact I accidentally purchased a roll of B&W film rather than color, I noted that B&W photos conveyed a much better representation of the subject than did color photos. That was the day I became a devout B&W fan. To this day, I do not fully comprehend the reason for such a significant difference. Maybe B&W forces us to concentrate on substance in the absence of distraction."

Featured Comment by Dennis: "The funny thing for me about reading this post today is that it immediately brings to mind Mike's recent post entitled "Do You Ever Feel This Way?" I love B&W photographs. My admittedly small bookshelf includes David Plowden, John Sexton, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, and Cartier-Bresson among others. I fondly recall some favorite photographs among the relatively few rolls of B&W film I shot, and occasionally try a monochrome conversion in LR that just clicks. But bye and large, my enjoyment of other peoples' B&W photographs makes me feel like I should do B&W in the same guilty sort of way Mike describes.

"It was easier with film, for some reason I can't explain, to find subject matter suited to black and white with black and white film in the camera. I can't seem to force myself to do the same with a digital camera. Maybe if it were a dedicated monochrome camera. Beyond that, I have the sense that there are so many people out there so much better at it than I'll ever be. The same is true of everything, but not to the same degree; I think I actually have an eye for color. And that's where I rationalize away the desire to do B&W.

"I think (I'm not sure) that I am pretty good at color; that I instinctively see compositions in which color contributes versus those in which it distracts (much more easily than I see tones that would show up differently in black and white). While those books of B&W photographs mentioned above are favorites, I recently bought Cape Light after reading about it here on TOP and found it very inspirational. While the B&W photos in the other books are thoroughly enjoyable to view, the color photos of Meyerowitz are photos that I can more reasonably aspire to. I'll leave B&W (somewhat guiltily) as an art form to be practiced by others and appreciated by me, much as Mike will leave winter photos to others."

Featured Comment by John Brewton: "Man, do I miss Camera Arts!"

Mike adds:I even still miss the first incarnation of Camera Arts, c. 1980–1983.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Colored rivulets ran on the pavement and roadside snow was stained blue when a tractor-trailer carrying a load of inkjet-printer ink cartridges crashed during the morning rush hour on the ramp between Route 128 and Interstate 95 in Peabody, Massachusetts, yesterday. (No one was hurt. Except possibly people who hate seeing expensive printer ink wasted.)

Oh, and as Richard K., who sent me this, pointed out, sometimes photographs really do have to be in color!

Mike(Thanks to Richard Kingston)

P.S. The title of this post is just me being funny, I have no idea what the street value of the ink might have been.

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Featured Comment by James: "Mike, I can’t resist an obvious challenge, so while publicly listening to a conference call, I’ve been doing some maths.

Heads up: My friends at B&H Photo tell me that B&H has just received its very first shipment of the mouth-watering new AF-S NIKKOR 35mm ƒ/1.4Güber Linse.

I can't afford it*, but may I just say yum.

Mike

*Well, and I don't shoot Nikon, which I guess also pertains. I am not going to admit how many times I have bought cameras in my life just to use specific lenses I'm enamored with, so don't even try to make me.

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Wednesday, 09 March 2011

This morning we had a late winter snowstorm that came down in big, sticky flakes and stuck to everything. Stop signs were white, not red; trees, cars, shopping carts at the grocery store, even power and telephone wires were coated with white frosting. And, as usual, I felt an anxious, nagging obligation to pick a camera and get out and photograph it.

Whenever a picturesque snowfall hits, I feel that same anxious feeling: like I'd better go out and take pictures of it while I have a chance. Like it was my job. Or my duty.

Thinking back, I have actually taken three successful photographs in my life of snowy scenes. One (6x6) published, one (4x5) never printed, and one (digital) that made me quite a lot of money. But by far the majority of the snow pictures I've ever made just don't move me or mean anything to me. I always get the feeling when I look at one of them later that it's something somebody else could have done better. There are lots of wonderful photographers of winter out there, who can shoot rings around me.

The myth of persistenceI had a neighbor once who had big ambitions around an "Amway"-type of sales scheme. You know, where you buy your household products in bulk from a friend or acquaintance and save money. (I don't recall the name of the company or product line. It wasn't Amway, but something similar. I just don't recall.)

Well, my neighbor quickly started to become a pest about it, and I found myself avoiding him. At around that time, I got a very eloquent sales pitch by email from a business acquaintance selling the very same product line. I was annoyed, so I wrote him back a somewhat curt note of some length saying that I had considered it before and concluded that I am just not the type of person to go in for that kind of thing.

I'm not, either. I'll run out of hand soap and wash my hands with dishwashing detergent for five days before finally remembering I need hand soap when I'm at the store.

The earliest of three decent snow scenes I've taken. This was made when Ronald Reagan was President, with a then-brand-new Mamiya 6 I was testing for a review in Darkroom Photography magazine. Sorry if I've showed this before—as I say, I only have the three.

I never heard from the email guy again, but my neighbor continued pestering me. The email guy's sales spiel had seemed so much slicker; I wondered why he'd given up so easily. So, just out of curiosity, I called him and questioned him about it.

He told me that he had taken my reply at face value. He felt he'd given me a good strong pitch, and that he'd gotten a specific and detailed reply from me. So he'd appraised me (correctly) as someone who was not a prospect and struck me off his list. "I don't want to waste your time but, more importantly, I don't want to waste mine," he told me. "If I think someone isn't a good prospect, I'll write them off."

I asked him how much he earned selling the Amway-type stuff, anyway.

Want to guess?

A hundred thousand dollars a year. He had recently quit his $70k-a-year advertising job to concentrate on it!

I just assumed my hapless neighbor was new to that kind of thing—he was sort of a genial bumbler type, always coming up with cockamamie schemes—so I figured I'd do him a favor. I went over to his house, sat him down, and explained to him that he was wasting his time trying to sell me his household products. I told him I just wasn't the type, that I'd never be a customer of his, that I honestly, seriously wasn't interested.

Along the way, of course, I questioned him a bit about his business. Turned out, to my amazement, that he wasn't a newbie—he'd been at it for ten years. His best-ever year? Nine grand. That was his peak. During the present year (that was '99, thereabouts) he figured he'd earn about five.

And you know what he said to me on the way out the door? "I'm gonna keep working on you, Mike. Persistence pays. You'll see—you'll be my customer one day. I'll get you." Said with a laugh.

Eventually, we ended up not being friends any more. I felt bad, but he just wouldn't stop pestering me.

I guess you get the point. The guy who refused to give up was not a success. The guy who gave up when it was smart to do so was the successful one.

Ever since then, I've been suspicious of the idea of persistence. It's a great, grand old American myth, of course: we're always telling ourselves that persistence and perseverence are crucial to success. But many people—including a few I could name—persist at failure. They keep trying, all right. But they keep trying to do things they already should have learned they're no good at.

The Universe has done all it could to let them know. But they're not listening.

I had a friend—a photography educator and author—who died a few years back. His youngest son, who was about my age, had been trying to make it as a musician, struggling, living in poverty, bouncing from menial job to menial job. Waiting and hoping for his big break.

He'd been doing that for more than twenty years. That was a dozen years ago. For all I know, he's still at it, well into middle age.

Sometimes, what's urgently needed is a little less persistence.

I'm not saying you should never persevere—that would be just as stupid as saying you always should. But you have to be smart. Be self-aware. When something just isn't panning out, give up and move on.

Been there, done thatMy feeling that I must photograph pretty snowfalls is entirely self-imposed. I'd just never really thought about it before. But this morning, I decided I should do one of two things: either I should commit to the kind of preparation and dedication required to make a really great winter-wonderland picture—scout locations, pick a format, test my technique, be 100% ready for when it happens next—or I should just give myself permission to leave the pretty snowfall pictures to others.

You'll notice there's no new picture with this post. Three is enough. It's not my thing.

So the next time one of these snowstorms comes along, I'm going to be prepared, and I'm going to be ready: prepared to just look around and enjoy it without photographing it, and ready to tell that anxious, nagging voice to shut up.

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Featured Comment by David Paterson: "We feel guilty about not being out there, shooting the wonders which nature serves up—winter, spring, autumn—and embarrassed because we know how very difficult it will be to say anything new about them. Snow-scenes are so obviously attractive the guilt and embarrassment are a little worse, is all."

Featured [partial] Comment by Tom Kwas: "I don't think, because I call myself a photographer, that every beautiful or meaningful situation I'm involved in needs to be spoiled by trying to take a picture of it. I realized years ago, that struggling to take a picture of a beautiful sunset I'm looking at can never be better than sitting there and watching it, and maybe talking with whoever I'm with. In a way, that seems far more healthy for my inner self. So, I've leaned to never feel bad about being in awe of a situation's beauty, and not wanting to spoil it by trying to record what can only be a weak representation of it." (See the Comments section for Tom's and Gerard's full comments. —Ed.)

Featured [partial] Comment by Gerard Kingma: "...You will suck at being a winter photographer if you don't like doing it. I take pictures of many things...but I will never do weddings, because I hate wedding photography...."

Mike replies:True. And this brings to mind the "What Could Be Better" codicil. I remember reading an article by a wedding photographer who said of wedding photography, "What could be better?" He liked the parties, couples, the romance in the air, everything about his job. He felt privileged to be able to do wedding photography for a living. I've done two weddings in my life, and the second was my mother's second marriage—and I had help with that one, from my girlfriend of the time, who was also a photographer.

Extrapolating outward, I think you could almost say that you've found the right job if you ever find yourself saying any variant of "what could be better." I say that about this job. I sometimes have to remind myself that I actually work very hard at this—it doesn't always even seem like work. Right this moment, for instance, there's not a thing I'd rather be doing.

"I get to do [X] all day. And I even get paid for it. What could be better?" I've definitely heard many photographers say something similar to that over the years.

Featured Comment by James Bullard: "I agree that you shouldn't beat your head against the wall but would add that you should be prepared to take what falls into your lap. I long ago decided I wasn't a wildlife photographer but occasionally a situation presents itself as a gift and when it does I take it. Most recently I shot this photo from the comfort of my kitchen. Never look a gift horse, deer or snow storm in the mouth. Just take the gift and say 'thank you.'"

Mike replies:Nice one. I agree; I'm even very proud of my two successful cat pictures (one 35mm, one digital), despite often making a running joke about hating cat pictures. I am definitely, decidedly not a cat photographer (or, truth be told, a cat lover, although I once did love a delightful, athletic female named Tweedles). But I'm glad not to be doctrinaire about it, and glad not to have turned up my nose at those two opportunities.

Featured Comment by Will: "Persistence in movies is how the guy gets the girl. Persistence in life is how the guy gets a restraining order."

Even with a premium price in place ($1200 instead of the initial projections of ~$1k), Fujifilm announced on Saturday that it has been overwhelmed with orders for the just-released FinePix X100, and cannot keep up with demand for the camera—or even its leather case and lens hood. In response the company is attempting to increase production, but may push most U.S. and U.K. deliveries to as late as April.

Mike(Thanks to Kent)

ADDENDUM: It's very common to read on forums strident comments to the effect that there's "no excuse" for companies to have a shortage of product for an introduction—how can they not have known? But of course, looking at it from the opposing angle, the downside is pretty big too. I know of a couple of real situations where companies badly misread demand on the high side, and it was not pretty—lots of real money was committed and lost providing product nobody actually wanted to buy. Demand with no supply is frustrating for consumers, but supply with no demand can spell real losses for companies.

I've also heard the old adage that "When there's a line, the price is too low." I don't think that's so simple, either. I've been involved in price-testing several products where there was a distinct "shelf" or line above which the demand dropped off a cliff. In one such case, we found people who seemed quite happy to pay $19.95 for a magazine subscription who departed in droves when the price went to $20.95. (You can test this pretty easily by sending out renewal offers for $19.95 but randomly sending two or three thousand people the exact same offer but with the $20.95 price. Then just quantify at the percentages of renewal orders you get from the two groups. Ironically, in that case, there was lots of difference between $19,95 and $20.95, but almost no difference between $20.95 and $23.95.)

To me, it was a real risk on Fuji's part to hike the price of the X100 to $1,200. It's paying off, looks like, but that sort of move is never a mortal lock.

Tailoring the price too closely to match demand has other risks, too. Wasn't there a case with one of the iPhones where Apple charged early adopters too much of a premium and then had to give refunds once the price dropped, to defuse complaints from angry early adopters who felt they'd been gouged? The damage caused by that kind of bad PR can be difficult to assess. Imagine if Fuji put the price of the first X100s at $1,500 and got that price for the first two months—but then lost sales for the rest of the product lifecycle because of a persisting impression that the camera was overpriced—even after the price had dropped? People don't like being manipulated, and if you manipulate them too transparently you can pay a price for it in other ways.

And you can't just ask people, either. You get very soft data when you ask people how much they'll pay for something. People answer such questions from the standpoint of their "ideal selves"—themselves if they actually had as much money as they picture themselves deserving. But it's their real selves that actually buy things. Ideal selves love to confidently say, "I'll take it." Real selves tend to be more cautious.

There can be quite a difference between ideal and real wallets and bank accounts. Many's the time I've read a review of a hot new sports car that costs $60,000 and been very firm in my opinion that I'd pay $45,000 for it but not $60,000. A pollster would get an earload to that effect if I were being asked. But of course I have never actually paid $45,000 for a car in my life, and the chances I'll ever do so are pretty slim at this point. The market researcher would be left contritely explaining to the manufacturer that he just can't explain it—lots of people said they'd pay $45,000 for that car. That Johnston guy, for one.

Similarly, Fuji didn't know if people would actually buy the X100 until it came time for them to fork over the dough. It's easy to get your head turned by a pretty new product and exclaim with great enthusiasm, "I'd buy one of those in a heartbeat!" But that doesn't mean you actually will.

These companies have all been jilted before, believe me.

Of course every company would like to be able to predict demand just perfectly for every new product. But it's a very complicated guessing game. There are too many separate factors to isolate any one of them to the point of certainty.

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My second-favorite feature of webpages is hyperlinking. (My favorite is the ability to correct errors after publication. Enhances the illusion of infallibility in a most satisfactory way.) Links are what make webpages uniquely useful and informative. If it weren't for them, we might as well just exchange Word docs.

Links let me do two very important things. The first is that they save me the trouble of reinventing the wheel, authorially speaking. If I think readers need to review background material that I've written previously I don't have to write it again nor expect them to dig up back issues, like I would with a print magazine. I just provide a link. It saves me time because I don't need to rewrite material that was already satisfactorily explained. It saves readers time because if they're not really interested in the subject or know it backwards and forward, they don't have to wade through 500 words of repeated material to get to the point.

The second thing links let me do is build on information. Knowledge isn't inherently subdividable into self-contained kiloword chunks. Many of my articles assume, of necessity, that you are familiar with information I've provided before. Some topics get followed over many articles, spread out in time. Links connect you to the necessary background material. Make use of them, please, especially before asking questions or posting comments. As often as not, you'll find your query's already been addressed.

I know there are some readers who don't like this. They would like all the pertinent information to be self-contained and in one location. But, honestly, it's just plain not possible. Not without making each and every article intractably long. Not to mention wasting my time reinventing/writing that same wheel. I mean, it's not like I write just to hear myself talk.

(Well, okay, I do write just to hear myself talk. But after I've heard myself say something once, I'm bored with me. Short attention span. I don't need to hear me say it again.)

Whatever. I'd much rather put my time and energy into writing about new things instead of rehashing the old.

I also know there are plenty of websites that abuse their links. They treat every article is if it is the start of a Joyceanstream of consciousnessmonologue, with seemingly every other word linked to some document somewhere that vaguely relates to it. Mike and I both work very hard to avoid that. When we put in a link, most often the content will be directly pertinent to what we're writing about now.

So please follow those hotlinks. When Mike or I refer you to a previous content, trust that we will have a good reason for that. Far more often than not they will provide some background that you need to know to fully understand or appreciate the current article.

Ctein

Ctein's regular weekly column appears on TOP on Wednesdays.

Mike adds:Since I've been invoked here, I figure maybe I should chime in. Linking is an art, not a science. The principle I follow is: I try not to do anything that would annoy me if I were you. In my world the reader always, always comes first. But not linking enough can sometimes be as annoying as linking too much.

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Tuesday, 08 March 2011

I'm not going to steal the thunder of either of the sites that published these two photos by posting the pictures here, but here are a couple you ought to see:

• The first has the tones I love in photographs—can't help meself—and I love pictures of legendary photographers and also—a separate thing—pictures of photographers photographing. A musician whose work I know never hurts, either (I have the album with the shot being made here on its cover). Okay, so I might have given this a touch less foreground. Picky picky. A photograph by Ted Barron, presented by the New York Times Magazine.

• The second is "street" shot*, sports shot, human interest photo, and decisive moment all wrapped into one. Spend a little time looking at all the faces and expressions in this wonderful photograph, the hands and feet and hats and drinks. And Mitch Davie, in the Gators tee: great grab. How can anyone not dig this? Just fun. Photograph by David Goldman, presented by the Seattle Times. Read the comment, too.

Mike(Thanks to Archer Sully and Rob Pinciuc)

*Yeah, I know it wasn't taken on a street. Hold those cards and letters. It's "street" in that it's a candid of strangers in a public environment.

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Featured Comment by Dan Westergren: "I can't believe the camera that Robert Frank is using. I've been using one of those cheap pack film Polaroids with Fuji film learning how to extract the negative. How could the cover of one of my favorite albums have been shot with such a simple camera? Then I remembered (well really I Googled) The man on the cover of "Rain Dogs" is not Tom Waits. The photograph is by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen. Too bad, I really wanted to see an album cover that had been shot with Polaroid pack film. Did photos from that shoot ever appear anywhere?"

Mike replies:Dan, the Frank shot is on the back cover of "Rain Dogs." See it here.

Question from Jeff: "Doesn't the shot for Waits' album back cover have people standing behind him?"

Mike replies:Look closely—Frank used the bystanders. The guy on the left in the album cover shot is at the far right in Ted Barron's shot. The guy right next to him is at the right on the album cover.

BBT: Somehow black and white it makes you feel like you’re in the story more, somehow...I don’t know....it creates such a mood.

OotCB: Yeah, who was it, was it Orson Welles? —Who said that black and white was the filmmaker’s friend?

BBT: It’s really true.

—Billy-Bob Thornton and the Coen brothers in the commentary track on the DVD of "The Man Who Wasn’t There," shot by Roger Deakins in black-and-white. The film is one of the few for which the Coen brothers recorded a director's commentary track, with both brothers and Billy Bob, the star of the film, participating.

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Featured Comment by Softie: "As regards why some artists choose B&W, I think B&W is integral to the modernist sensibility, and if that's the kind of work you like or want to do, I think you'll be naturally drawn to it. I think B&W gets you closer to Zukofsky's idea of a work of art as an object at complete rest. And as Ezra Pound said, 'DICHTEN = CONDENSARE.' Apropos to photography, Man Ray noted that painters often liked the (B&W) photographs of their paintings better than the actual (color) paintings. (Of course, Man Ray also said that all critics should be assassinated....)"

Featured Comment by Paul Pomeroy: "You hear it said every once in a while that whatever is not working for a composition is working against it. Color often falls into this category. The brain relies primarily on light/dark values to determine what it is seeing. This has been explored and experimented with by many artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Alexej Jawlensky. Take Jawlensky's Head of a Woman, for example:

"Even though the the colors are all 'wrong' we still know what we are looking at. To understand why, just open the image up in something like Photoshop and desaturate it. The sharp contrast, for example, of the magenta on yellow on the lit side of her face completely disappears when desaturated because the values of the two colors are almost identical. You cannot do this the other way around; you can't keep the right colors and use the wrong values.

"Colors are not always unimportant. We assign emotional content to them; we see some colors, like red, as standing out (closer to the viewer) than others and as having more 'weight' when it comes to creating a balanced composition. In part, what Jawlensky was doing with his art was making the colors in them more important than the 'correct' colors would have been.

Margaret Nes, The Blue Door

"And when you're dealing with the work of a colorist, like the pastel artist Margaret Nes, the colors are essential. But when color is not key—when it's not adding to what the artist or photographer is trying to convey—it can be removed and the result is often a more pure version of the message."

Mike replies:Very interesting and enlightening, Paul—thanks for that. My take on color in photography is much simpler, but similar—it's that you can either photograph for color or you can photograph for meaning and values, but it's rare when all those things align at once. So if you photograph for meaning, colors are arbitrary; if you photograph for color, then meanings are arbitrary. It's very different from art (or color in the studio), where you can choose what colors to use and make them intentional.

Two portraits by Robert Bergman

The only time this isn't an issue is when people are photographing things in which the colors are verities—i.e., always or often the same or "right." Birds are always the colors they should be, and skies and trees too. Pure colorist photographers that photograph something other than those kinds of subjects are very rare. The recent discovery Robert Bergman is one—he does portraits of randomly encountered people on the street, but all of his portraits are essentially coloristic compositions as well as revealing portraits. It's a tough act to pull off outside of the studio—which might help explain why his body of work is so small and took him so long to build up.

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Featured Comment by MiTaka: "Hi Mike, as a frequent TOP reader I am glad you found my comparison pic interesting. I have made it to show the size of X100, compared to other compacts with attached viewfinders. Note that I have put the images together, but the pictures are not mine. They are property of their respective owners.

"To answer some of the questions: G series are the same size as Nikon P7000. Two Canons in a single pic is too much for me ;) . I am not interested in comparing to film cameras, it's a moot point for me. They are just different. I must admit I forgot about Ricoh.

Monday, 07 March 2011

J. H. C. Grabill, General Miles and staff. Six military men on horseback on a hill overlooking a large encampment of tipis, 1891.

It's all there—stagecoaches, Indian chiefs, tipis, bluecoats, 1880s steam engines with oversized smokestacks and cowcatchers, and the sole survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn—true views of the Old West. A selection of John C. H. Grabill's work, culled from the Library of Congress archives, at the Denver Post's pblog.

We have only a brief window into J. C. H. Grabill's life. Nothing is known of him before he opened a studio in Sturgis, South Dakota, near Deadwood, in 1886. He was already an accomplished photographer by then. In 1891 he moved to Chicago and operated a studio there until 1894. Then he disappears again.

He is known now from 188 photographs he sent to the Library of Congress for registration of copyright between 1886 and 1892. He photographed with a 10x12-inch view camera and made albumen prints.

Deadwood was a famous frontier mining town; the West's most famous murder happened there when Wild Bill Hickok (the original "quick draw" gunfighter) was killed in Deadwood's No. 10 Saloon during a card game. He was holding two black eights and two black aces, which ever since has been known as a Dead Man's Hand. His murderer, Jack McCall, was buried with the noose around his neck. Wild Bill is buried between Potato Creek Johnny, and, as a joke on Bill, Calamity Jane, for whom he had no affection in life.

John C. H. Grabill also photographed the aftermath of the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.

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Featured Comment by Tom Judd: "I went to the Library of Congress site and found the complete collection, with hi rez TIFF files. I downloaded a few favorites, and after some Photoshop work printed them 12" wide. Holding a large print in my hands was a real trip back in time. A much stronger experience than just viewing them on the screen. By the way, re the foreground building with the sign 'J.C.H. Grabill's Mining Exchange'—just like now, photographers in the late 1800s had to have something else going to earn a living!"

Featured Comment by carl frederick: "I couldn't take my eyes off them, anticipating the next one more than the last = my personal definition of a great set of photos."

Sunday, 06 March 2011

I have a sardonic little mantra I like to repeat that goes "editors needed everywhere." It's a response to encountering "howlers" in the wild—a "howler" being an error so egregious that it makes you howl (whether in amusement or in pain remains unspecified). I even have a friend (hi there, Paul) with whom I share particularly woeful or wonderful typos and examples of ungrammatical English.

Here's a recent example (I think I found this one)—

This is an attempt to compare the performance of the PhaseOne digital back with the one obtained by scanning a low-sensibility film picture from 6x9 format.

Paul and I agreed that we can sympathize, because both of us have taken plenty of low-sensibility pictures over the years.

Anyway, as you might know, recently I've been watching some movies again. This follows a period of more than ten years when I hardly watched any at all—I virtually only saw movies that friends took me to see as part of a social occasion.

A recent article about the cynicism of Hollywood noted that Hollywood now "targets" movies at specific demographic segments—young males, young females, older females, or older males. The point was made that if you can appeal to more than one of those demographic groups, it's generally a good thing, but if you target only older males, you're sunk, because older males don't go to movies.

Once I read that, I figured my behavior might simply be typical for my demographic.

I think it's more complicated than that, however. I think I reached a point a number of years back where Hollywood had simply let me down.

The reason is, I hate getting jerked around.

And "jerking people around" is virtually a mission statement for the movie industry. That's what they're trying for. Striving mightily to overdo everything. Everything has to be over the top, turned up to 11, overcooked, on steroids, enhanced—and that includes shamelessly and blatantly manipulating the emotions of the audience.

I just don't like being treated that way.

The most recent two movies I've watched brought that point home again. The first was "Blood Simple," the Coen brothers' first movie. It's a neo-noir thriller, and expertly plotted—I loved the basic plotting device, which is that every character misinterprets what's actually happening and acts perfectly logically according to what they believe is going on—all the way down to the delightful ending, which I won't give away. (Where she says, "I'm not scared of you [blank]....")

It has a superb score, too, by Carter Burwell, one of the best I've ever encountered in any movie. It's both extremely subtle and extremely distinctive, which is like hitting two home runs with one swing.

But of course it's a "thriller," which implies a standard packet of audience manipulations: most especially, characters must spend a lot of time standing around stupidly doing nothing when danger is imminent or something bad is about to happen to them. People in thrillers act slowly so audiences have plenty of time to squirm. Apparently people like that.

I don't.

I want people to act naturalistically, i.e., like real people would act.

But "Blood Simple" is a good movie and well worth seeing. Its disappointments are nothing compared to the 2003 "House of Sand and Fog," adapted from the novel by Andre Dubus III, who is responsible for the plot.

First of all, "spoiler alert," although if I spoil this movie for you I will have done you a favor.

My first reaction was that this was a horrible movie, really one of the worst I've ever seen. I literally took the DVD out of the machine, put it back in its case, and threw it in the trash. Sorry I watched it, wish I hadn't. (This amused me: Andrew O'Hehir, writing in Salon, said "After the New York screening I attended, a middle-aged couple coming out the door ahead of me were complaining bitterly about all the things they could have been doing instead of watching 'House of Sand and Fog.' Their list included watching 'Law & Order' reruns on TNT or shopping for their kids at Toys 'R Us; it's safe to say these folks were unhappy campers.")

I might be a little out of step, too: many reviewers apparently thought the director was trying to make the American characters sympathetic, whereas I thought the movie was deliberately trying to make Americans look bad. If that woman and that cop are sympathetic, I'd sure hate to see what passes for unsympathic.

It wasn't until the day after I watched the DVD that I realized what's special about it: it's a movie that fails utterly, but only because of its story line. Bad writing sinks the whole enterprise.

Well, and its score, which is also awful. It was driving me crazy by the end. But mostly the story line.

Everything else about the movie, though, was oustanding. Usually, great movies succeed on many levels, but they tend to hit on all cylinders. That is, all the different contributors' elements—acting, directing, casting, writing, cinematography, etc.—all work together, in concert. Bad movies usually fail in more than one area—everything's vaguely off, or bad, or weak, or doesn't gel. Sometimes, passable movies have flaws they can't overcome, but mostly, the flaws are multivalent.

Jennifer Connelly in "House of Sand and Fog."

But it's unusual, I think, to find a movie that succeeds in essentially every way except for its writing. "House of Sand and Fog" is very well crafted in many ways, from its inventive premise (Dubus also gets credit for this) to its casting. I bought it because Roger Deakins did the cinematography, and the cinematography is excellent. I could quibble with the casting of Jennifer Connelly—I thought she was too pretty for her role—but she gives a fine performance. The acting is excellent overall; the film even delivers one standout acting performance, from Ben Kingsley, and a very strong supporting performance by the ex-patriate Persian (Iranian) actress Shohreh Aghdashloo.

But the writing at the end. Ach.

One of the problems novelists have is that they're almost fatally tempted to act as puppetmasters. They own their characters, and they can make their characters do anything, anything at all, and frequently they're just unable to resist that temptation (read virtually any John Irving novel to see this flaw taken to an extreme—that guy really makes the puppets dance).

Two-thirds of the way into this story, the writer is in full-on puppeteer mode. We depart completely from rational, naturalistic human behavior and devolve completely into Hollywood mannerism. The last third of the movie, by which time a subtle and inventive premise has imploded utterly into a standard bad-TV-style hostage-and-gunpoint melodrama, complete with not one but two suicide attempts in less than ten minutes, the story line has become 100% certified fake-serious. And how does Hollywood fake seriousness? Like you need me to tell you that. Blood, gore, and premature death, obviously. (It made me laugh a few years ago when I first saw the title "There Will Be Blood." What was that, a scribbled instruction from a producer? A chapter from How to Write a Modern Screenplay? Too funny.)

Guns, blood, death, gore, and more death is the default mode of signifying depth in American art.

Although a rogue cop acting like a complete unhinged idiot never hurts*.

This one goes for Hamlet-level everybody-kill-yourself. The writer must have thought, I'm going to make this real estate squabble really, really serious, boy. You watch, everybody's going to die or have their lives ruined.

Rub hands together. Cue actors.

Gee whiz. Guess this must be Serious Dramar, then.

Piffle. I've gotten a lot of pleasure over the years from many of my encounters with art, but some of them you just wish you could take back.

Anyway, the hopelessly bathetic "House of Sand and Fog" is a fine example of the reason I stopped watching movies. It was not because I was enacting my demographic: it was because...well: writers needed everywhere.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts that usually appear on TOP on Sundays. Disclaimer: the writer is not a professional movie reviewer, knows no Hollywood writers except Gordon Lewis, virtually never watches pop schlock, and has seen far fewer movies than the average American. Season accordingly with grain of salt.

*I might have to cut this movie and TV stereotype a little more slack in the future, however. In 2007 a sheriff's deputy here in Wisconsin shot six people, including his ex-girlfriend, at a party. So it does happen. Is it still fair to say that most officers of the law would not attempt to compel real estate transactions at gunpoint?

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Featured Comment by David: "As it happens, I am both a regular TOP reader and a Hollywood screenwriter.

"One of the many pitfalls of my profession is that when people love a movie, they praise the acting, the cinematography, and—most of all—the director. When people hate a movie, they blame the screenwriter.

"The contempt that is leveled at screenwriters is reflective of two attitudes: the belief that writing is easy, and a complete lack of understanding about how the creative process works in Hollywood.

"The screenplay is the battleground of moviemaking. A writer creates a screenplay that is strong enough to pull together the 'elements'—the director, actors, and financing. Then it becomes the object of endless negotiations, power plays, wrangling and tweaking by executives and producers which frequently serve to dilute or destroy any fragile shred of coherence in the final product. After a few rounds of this, the script is usually a mess. Then the 'damage control' begins as the start date approaches, torturing the poor thing further. When it's all over, the executives get to pat themselves on the back for 'saving' the movie, or, if it's a failure, they get to blame the writer. As a general rule, when you watch a Hollywood movie, it's usually much, much worse than the first draft that begat it.

"I imagine it's hard for you to relate because you are in a business where you work alone and enjoy complete control over your product. That's feasible when that product costs close to nothing. When the artwork in question costs $80 million and involves major multinational corporations with many layers of bureaucracy, it's a very different process. Even editing a photo magazine as you once did really gives you no frame of reference for what goes on in this ecosystem. Photography is fairly simple. That's why I like it.

"If you were a writer in Hollywood and had any understanding of what goes into making movies—and believe it or not, most writers in Hollywood are very much like you—you would reserve your contempt for people other than your writing brethren."

Mike replies:Thanks for the great comment—always best to hear things like this firsthand—but I think you've misread me a bit. I'm aware of the realities, at least at a couple of removes—I've read things like John Gregory Dunne's Monster and I used to have a passing acquaintance with Larry McMurtry back when he was making a good bit of his living writing treatments. And I recall that vivid image in "Adaptation" where one of the great artists in Hollywood, Charlie Kaufman (or rather the "serious Charlie" character he wrote), is reduced to lurking in the shadows of a movie set, just to be at hand in case the director might need him. Outrageous. Like Shakespeare serving at the pleasure of Shylock.

It's not really "the writer" I'm excoriating here but "the writing"—not the original script but the story of the movie as it was made. As a critic, I have to deal with the work of art that's in front of me—I can't deal with phantoms of what should have been or might have been.

I wish I could find for you an impassioned essay I once write in defense of screenwriters, condemning the system that can literally rob them of their stories, and in more ways than one. Lost, unfortunately. Suffice it to say that I think the "mess" you mention ("After a few rounds of this, the script is usually a mess") is discernible to at least some degree in virtually all of Hollywood's product—to its detriment. At the very least, I'll just mention that the contrast between plays and films could hardly be more instructive. Just imagine a staging of a Eugene O'Neill or Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams play where the producers called in three additional writers, changed a majority of the dialogue, changed the story line, recast the entire ending, and relegated the original playwright to uncredited status. ("I want a rewrite on Murder In the Cathedral and I want it by Tuesday!" "Dear Mr. Simon, we like Lost in Yonkers, but does it have to be Yonkers? It makes us think of honkers.") Inconceivable. Hollywood's refusal to respect its best writers and accord them some of the same status that playwrights receive is its #1 failing, in my opinion—bar none.

In fact, my feeling is that the only way screenwriters can get adequate respect these days is when the screenwriter is also the director—one and the same—as is the case with the Coens. (I was astonished recently when I read something about Joel Coen objecting when his leading actor changed one word in one of his movies—he insisted on having it exactly the way it was written. What other screenwriter would get that kind of respect from any director?) But I don't really have enough knowledge to make that claim. I'd love to hear your take on that.

Response from David: "Thanks for your reply, and sorry if I might have sounded a bit prickly. The answer to your question is: you're right.

"Directing is one way of staying in control of your product, but it's hardly a guarantee. On big studio 'tentpoles,' as they're called, the director is often as much at the mercy of the system as the writer, though they are more careful to maintain the illusion that they're in control.

"Even directors need someone who can insulate and protect them. A good producer—and they are very rare—can shepherd a project through the system while protecting what makes it unique. You'll notice that the Coens work almost exclusively with Scott Rudin, who keeps the outside forces at bay so that they can do their thing.

"These days, the best vehicle for writers has been television, where the creator or 'showrunner' enjoys a level of control that is unparalleled in movies. A writer like Matt Weiner of 'Mad Men' controls every camera angle, every line reading, the placement of every prop. He has the leverage of being the only guy who can put the show on the air every week, so he can do anything he wants.

"The truth is that it's very difficult to gain the kind of control the Coens have, and even harder to keep it. They get it because they're so good at what they do, and because they literally refuse to show up unless they get it. It's not just that they don't compromise, but that they don't even understand compromise. They resemble autistics in that they are so narrowly focused on their vision that nothing else even enters their consciousness. But their style of filmmaking is the exception, not the rule. Most studios would not be interested in dealing with them at all.

"Those of us who do this for a living are never surprised when we see bad movies. We watch bad movies and see the endless procession of meetings and memos that led to their creation.

"What's surprising—almost miraculous—is that every year one or two good movies manage to get through the system and make it into theaters, and those movies are what keep us going."

Featured Comment by Paul Byrnes: "Try watching movies for a living, Mike. Lots of people think it's a breeze but after spending most of my adult life doing it, I share some of your pain. Being jerked around is my daily duty. Recent peak: standing in the drizzle outside a movie funpark in southern Queensland on a Sunday morning waiting for my chance to see Yogi Bear in 3D, a character most of the kids present had never heard of (I asked a bunch of them).

"That said, I'm glad you didn't give up—then the bad guys win. There are still lots of great movies being made, even some in Hollywood—or just north of there, especially at Pixar. And you might like to delve into the hard-to-find works of Yasujiro Ozu, one of the greatest Japanese directors, from the 1930s to the 1960s. He eschewed plot—'plot uses people.' The smallest human interactions produced the most beautiful human dramas in his films—and he shot everything from one position three feet above the ground, the height of the head when one sits on a tatami mat. No camera movement either, the tripod was locked off. Try 'Tokyo Story.' A great antidote to modern unsteadicam techniques.

"Looking forward to your post about movies about photographers. I'm compiling a list of the cameras they used, for my own amusement—like the Argus C3 that Ruth Hussey uses in 'The Philadelphia Story,' or the Nikon F's that Clint used in 'Bridges of Madison County.'"

Mike replies:I grew up watching Yogi Bear in black-and-white. I still distinctly remember seeing Yogi in color for the first time—I was very critical, because I was convinced they got some of the colors wrong. I was six.

Featured Comment by Edie Howe: "It's been years since I've made the effort to go to a movie of my own volition. Like you, I too dislike the emotional roller-coaster of scripted movies. With all due respect to sibling TOP reader David, there is little to engage me. (Side note: Google "Bechdel test" for further explanation.)

"That said, might I suggest non-verbal, non-narrative films? As a photographer, I find myself fascinated with this form of film-making. I have this urgent feeling that cinematography has an important role in a photographers education, and since meeting Tom Lowe (Timescapes.org), I've been exploring the genre with deep interest.

Friday, 04 March 2011

I had grief with Epsons whenever the relative humidity dipped below 42%. I had to do the dance of the cleaning cycles, Windex on tissues under the print heads, etc.

However, last year I bought a zippered sweater storage bag, cut small slits for the power and USB cords, and put the printer inside the bag with a piece of wet sponge on a plastic jar cap. I keep the bag zippered shut except when I want to print. Every four or five days I rewet the sponge.

Not one printer clog or spotty nozzle test in a year. It's simple, effective, cheap solution to a problem Epson could have solved with a sealed head docking position.

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Featured Comment by Crabby Umbo: "Your local cigar purveyor has little packets about the size of a business card that would keep the humidity in that 'rig' to 70% for a while; at least a month, if not more. They're about a dollar a pop. Worth trying, and relatively accurate at holding that humidity. No external dampness that might be problematic, like a wet sponge."

Featured Comment by Allan Connery: "If you don't have a cigar store nearby, search Amazon for 'humidor solution.' Several vendors sell a 50/50 mix of distilled water and propylene glycol. The solution is claimed to maintain humidity in a closed space at 70 to 75%, by releasing moisture into dryer air, and absorbing it from wetter air. It's also said to inhibit mold on cigars—which gives me pause. Is 75% humidity too high for a printer?"

Mike replies:Last I knew anything about it, 40–50% was considered ideal for interior climates that were controlled for preservation of paper documents and artworks. I quote from an article by Sherelyn Ogden of the Northeast Document Conservation Center: "Authorities disagree on the ideal temperature and relative humidity for library and archival materials. A frequent recommendation is a stable temperature no higher than 70°F and a stable relative humidity between a minimum of 30% and a maximum of 50%."

That, of course, tells us little about the ideal conservation environment for an Epson printer if you're trying to prevent head clogs; 75% seems on the high side on general principles, however. Wonder whether a garment bag with a bit of moist sponge on a jar cap is higher or lower than 75%? My guess is lower.

Featured Comment by Stephen Schaub: "Beyond a head clog, if you humidity drops below 40% it will affect the actual paper. I have done testing for most inkjet paper companies and all confirm that extreme humidity drops can and does cause issues with total ink load...so if you make an ICC profile in the summer months at a nice 50 or 60% relative humidity and in the winter it hits something like 15 or 20% or the 10% I sometimes see here in Vermont, things are going to look very different.... When I was beta testing for Crane we discovered this issue on the pre-release of their inkjet paper line several years ago....as a result I store all paper in a controlled area or, like my friends at the Salto Press in Belgium do, give new or unbalanced paper a few days to get to proper humidity before printing."

A strange and ultimately puzzling project by Argentinian photographer Irina Werning is making the rounds—not so much "Back to the Future," which is the project's title, as "forward to the past." Irina has very skillfully made modern replicas of vintage snapshots using the original subjects as they appear today, grown, or aged.

Irina Werning, Benn and Dan in 1979 & 2010, London

After having thought about this for several days I still don't quite know what to make of it. Her efforts to duplicate the look of the originals and replicate the props is certainly impressive ("this project made me realize I'm a bit obsessive," she says), and it is certainly a parallel to the "rephotographic" projects of buildings and landscapes that often fascinate me and that we've discussed before. But despite the precise parallels, with people it seems to have a very different meaning, somehow. The now-inappropriate props and situations create a creepy overtone to some of the pictures that changes their meaning all out of proportion to the overtly innocent outline of the project (at least, I assume it's innocent—the subjects seem to be having fun with the idea, and so does the photographer). Things like a photo of two grown men in a bubble bath together have a whole different constellation of implications and associations than two little boys in the same situation, and a picture of an adult woman dressed as a little girl holding a teddy bear is a very different proposition from a little girl, appropriately dressed, and holding an age-appropriate toy.

Irina Werning, Fiona in 1978 & 2010, London

I guess this odd tension between very changed meaning and near-identical replication of the look and feel of the old photographs is what gives the pictures their interest, but at the same time I'm not feeling a richness of deeper meaning there. Except maybe that it's kinda creepy not to act your age.

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Featured Comment by Judith Wallerius: "It mainly makes me think that I've seen something like that before. Zefrank has a continuing project on his home page called "Young Me / Now Me" which is just like this, only with the people themselves recreating the new picture. I think he started it in 2008.

Young Me / Now Me no. 357

"Some of them are surprisingly accurately done, and often funny in a way that doesn't translate if it's a stranger (in this case, literally) calling the shots.

"I don't even think she copied the idea, but in this day and age the probability of hearing of a project someone did half a world away is much bigger. It can actually be quite disheartening if you're looking to find your own creative voice, only to find on every corner that there has already been someone who did that, or something like it, before. And probably better, because you are likely to see an already finished project/product. I suspect it keeps people from trying out things that would've led them on to completely new projects and ideas completely their own, simply because they see no point in even starting on that particular road.

"I would be very interested in seeing where this artist is in two or five years, if an element of this project leads her on to something else."

Mike replies: Funny, I did not remember that at all in this context, even though I've seen it before. Thanks.

[But you didn't ever refer to this...] 'The Arrow of Time.' 'On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop, for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by." See Diego, Susy, Nicholas, Matias, and Sebastian from 1976 to 2008.

Mike replies: Actually, I've written about the Arrow of Time project too.

But back to the Young Me / Now Me project. I guess I don't see a lot of similarity in these two projects, aside from a superficial similarity, for one all-important reason: Irina Werning's pictures have authorship, whereas the Young Me / Now Me project doesn't—it's directed, but it's voluntary, with each individual submitting both the pictures and the more recent mimickry of it. With Irina's pictures, presumably she chooses the shot to duplicate, the way she'll do so, even the subjects themselves. With all photography—all art—that changes the game; where there is authorship, there is reason to expect intent, and reason to look for deeper meaning. It's the difference between a real snapshot and an artist working within the snapshot aesthetic, which are two very different things. There's a close resemblance between the products of these two projects, but in terms of their meaning they're quite a ways apart, at least to my reading.

Featured Comment by James: "This is a fascinating topic. To me, there's something deeply disquieting and skin-crawling about the photo of the grown men in the bubble bath, but that probably says more about my own prejudices than anything else. And the point of good 'art' is to challenge you into thinking. On the other hand, the photo of the grown girl with the Teddy Bear didn't even make me pause for thought until I read Mike's text.

"I've got in my house two possibly related themes, although by accident and not design. I spent over 20 years in the military, and in the tradition of the British, the bulk of it was spent with one small Regiment of 580 men. Every year, photographs were taken of the whole Regiment (with a large format camera), and you could buy prints. I did, every year. So what I have is the photographic record of me and about 50 other soldiers and officers who joined with me in 1983, going forward for 22 years until I left. You see the same faces maturing, and with seniority, getting closer to the centre of the photograph. In 1983, I'm a fresh-faced, fit young Lieutenant standing on the far left hand side in the second row, and three rows up and off to the far right is Trooper Paul Fox, nearly 18 and my tank driver. The last photo I have in 2005 shows us both sitting next to each other in the centre: he the Regimental Sergeant Major (AKA 'Father of the Regiment'), me the Regimental second in command. Both of us wear identical medals to commemorate shared campaigns and operational tours over more than 20 years. Meanwhile, in the last photo there are two other young men somewhere on the margins who in 20 years time will be sitting together in the middle.

"The other 'similar' concept I have is a series of photographs taken by me of soldiers under my command in different operational theatres over the last 20 years. It doesn't matter how dissimilar they were physically or in character, under tension and the imminent threat of being killed or wounded, they all look the same. If you want to see that look, pick any war since photography was invented and look at the candid and unposed photographs of individuals (Don McCullin is one of my favourite photographers, particularly his images from Biafra, Vietnam, and Northern Ireland). It's a human trait that the camera amplifies."

Featured Comment by David Wilkinson: "This is really weird and looks like a coincidence to me but this very morning In the U.K.'s weekend Guardian newspaper there is a piece by Katherine Rose where she has asked some U.K. comedians to recreate childhood snapshots.

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The Epson Stylus Photo R3000—latest in a stately line of 13-inch Stylii Photii—has just barely begun shipping.

Yr. Hmbl. Editor has a detectable tendency to avoid category leaders when disbursing Own Money. I guess I like underdogs or something. My first car was a Mazda, not a Honda or Toyota. I haven't shot Canon since they were Avis to Nikon's Hertz. (That might be an outdated reference now for all I know. Used to be, Avis had an advertising campaign—"We Try Harder"—that tried to make a virtue out of being #2.)

So how's that going? Well, consider: I have two Bronicas and a Konica Hexar RF, and my first (and still favorite) DSLR was a Konica-Minolta 7D.

Ahem.

(I don't know what that portends for Panasonic or Pentax, the makers of my current digital cameras [GF-1 and K-5]. But it might not be good. Or maybe I'm just getting better at going with winners.)

My sortie into the world of inkjet printers didn't go much better, I'm afraid. I chose an HP B9180, which hit all the right marks for me on paper, but turned out to be such a problem child that HP has evidently fled that market niche for good, tail tucked firmly beneath its corporate behemoth behind. My B9180s—plural—were certainly problematic for me. I made some good prints with the printer—it gave beautiful results when it was perched delicately on the narrow edge of working right—but I'm not sure I even got it really properly on song. The whole thing had to be replaced once, two heads had to be replaced, and, still, the occasions when all four heads registered the glorious green lights of health in the status box were as rare as blue moons or 50-degree days in January. It leaked money, even when I wasn't using it. I finally got so frustrated with its balky ways that the camel's back broke and I took it out of the system—removed it from the periphery, as it were—and exiled it to the floor in the corner of the living room, where it sulks quietly still.

The advent of the R3000The undisputed leader in this market category is Epson. And Epson's core product—smack dab at the highly charged border between its amateur and professional lineups—is its premium 13-inch printer, long the stalwart favorite of advanced amateur and enthusiast photographers. There have been a long line of them. (Someone else can give the procession in detail, if they care to. I am weary.)

This month marks the advent of the latest one, the R3000. It was announced on January 17th and has just started shipping in very limited quantities (Amazon doesn't list it yet; B&H Photo is taking pre-orders; and Epson itself is "out of stock"). Reviews have started to trickle forth, including this good one by Ben Weeks at Warehouse Express.

It has its selling features, of course. (What new product doesn't?) In a nutshell: it uses the latest iteration of Epson's UltraChrome K3 inkset with Vivid Magenta; it has a front loader for fine art media with very precise positioning; it switches automatically between blacks, both of which can remain installed at the same time, not always the case with Epson printers in the past; it offers a choice of USB, WiFi, or ethernet connectivity; and the ink cartridges are a little higher capacity (25.9 ml, although the price per milliliter isn't really any better. It's still $84,000 an ounce, or something like that). It's billed as being "compact," but that's relative to the larger wide-carriage pro printers...at a hulking two feet wide, it would be the largest single piece of equipment in my office if I installed it here, save the stereo speakers. At least it's easy on the eyes, or as easy as a plastic box is likely to be.

You could of course make the argument that the border between the amateur and pro models is the worst place to situate oneself, one of those compromises that are worse than either extreme. You pay a lot for the printer ($850 list) yet you still pay a lot for the inks and can't use the really high-capacity carts; you can use big paper but not that big; etc.). But the main point is that it's the newest and latest and shiniest and bestest from Epson, in a product position that's important enough that it's gotten a lot of engineering lavished on it and product development dollars spent on it.

Sure to be a winner?

Don't know. But it bears watching.

Mike

(P.S. As for me and my cameras, it's not really as bad as it looks. I bought the Bronicas and the Hexar RF after, and basically because, the companies had already gone out of business. So Panasonic and Pentax probably don't have that much to fear from me after all.)

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Ctein adds:Definitely not cheaper ink than the previous generation of 13-inch printer, but not just slightly bigger cartridges, more than twice as big. A real convenience factor for folks who do more than occasional printing.

Meanwhile for folks who can afford twice the moolah (after rebate), the new 17 inch Epson 4900 printer uses their brand-new "HD" ink set with the additional two colors. Should both improve color gamut and subtle rendition and slightly reduce ink costs.

As per previous discussions of things like 2880s versus 3880s, the larger, cheaper-per-milliliter ink cartridges that ship with the 4900 offset a lot of the additional cost of that printer and mean that over the course of a year or so you're likely to actually save money.

On the other hand, if you think the 3000 is large, the 4900 is insane. (One of the reasons I went with a 3880 instead of a 4880 is that I couldn't figure out how to fit the 4880 in my office.)

Featured Comment by Old Fart: "I'm getting ready to move and I am cleaning out my studio. I am not amused to find I have piles and piles (literally hundreds) of inkjet prints that strictly qualify as 'test prints,' dating back to 2000 when I bought my first photo inkjet printer. These prints have all kinds of notes penciled on them: what color profile was used, what RIP, what settings, etc, etc. ad nauseum. And on the shelf, I have one modest print box, 1" thick, with 'keepers.' It's about half full. And I have a few framed prints on the wall. You know what—I never actually got a inkjet print that could match what I used to do on Cibachrome.

"And you should see my box full of inkjet cartridges waiting to be recycled—there's about 200 of them, from just the past few years. Do the math on the cost. I did and I am pissed. Not to omit from mention there is a non-repairable Epson 2200 sitting in the corner of the room.

"Don't even get me started about the highway robbery at gunpoint for wanting to update ImagePrint just because I want to upgrade my operating system. Last time I paid up, they only profiled a couple of the papers I asked for, and they are just as arrogant on the phone as they ever were. Nuh-uh it ain't happening guys.

"And the fact of the matter is, thanks to the progression of both end-user and print lab color management, these days, when I want a nice print, I can upload it to one of several high-quality services (usually not bothering to proof it) and in a few days I get exactly the result I expected, for far less than the cost of even a single inkjet cartridge, let alone the three or four I always seem to have to replace when I turn on my R2400. Also, far less aggravation.

"Bringing this to the final point: I am done with photo inkjets. I am done with RIPs. I'm done playing with InkAid and all the other nonsense that appealed to me as a consolation against not ever really being able to get a truly satisfactory straight photographic inkjest print. (That was a Freudian slip, I swear!)

"I'm going to eBay my R2400 and Imageprint and live happily ever after. My office printer makes a decent enough 8x10" proof and it cost me all of $79. It only has four cartridges, it doesn't clog, and doesn't need a RIP. When I want exhibition-quality it's just a few days away and it comes on actual photo paper. Or on canvas. Or on whatever paper I want. I don't have to fume because Colorbyte doesn't have the stinking profile I want. I don't have to spend $50 on ink just to clear head clogs.

"Life is good."

Featured Comment by Jay: "A B9180 experience. I knew the the heads were easy to replace so I decided to see how to replace them. I opened the cover and lifted the small plastic piece that covers the heads. When I tried to close the machine I pushed the plastic piece down but It kept springing back up. I could not see what the problem was so I called HP. The 'gentleman' (at least he spoke English) explained that the problem would cost so much to fix that I should just buy a new printer. He offered me a 'special price' on a newer model which sounded very good. Of course, when I thought to ask, he said the inks and heads were not included. They would cost more than the printer. Having told him where he and HP could go I hung up.

"All this to replace a piece that probably cost 35 cents. I had an inspiration and the piece is now held down with a small piece of tape. Everything works well now with the usual quirks and problems."

Featured Comment by Bernard Scharp: "I can't help but think that the costs of inktjet printing do a lot to offset the 'cheapness' of digital pictures compared to film. Sure, a roll of film may be $5.00 nowadays, but the paper and chemicals required for the final picture are peanuts compared to inkjet paper and inks. And enlargers are a lot cheaper than printers."

Mike replies: I recall that in the '90s, one of the things you often heard as "received wisdom" was that, when inkjet printers got good, "at least" the papers would be a lot cheaper than photo paper because they wouldn't have to be coated with costly silver emulsion and gelatin. They would be "just paper." Ah, the days of innocence!

Price I was paying in the '90s for 100 sheets of 8x10" Agfa Multicontrast Classic (MCC), my most-used paper: about $45–55. (My memory is hazy on this point, but I believe it got up as high as the $70 range just before Agfa went out of business.)

It's still a remarkable fact to me that we here at TOP have a number of readers in the Southern Hemisphere, where summer is beginning to draw to a close and fall is on the way.

Here in the old Northwest, however, spring is just around the corner. Spring, to me, marks the start of the photography season. Lengthening days, more accommodating temperatures, changing greenery. Last night it got down to the teens here—that's minus 7 or 8 Celsius—but the strengthening sun did some work on the sidewalks yesterday even so, melting some more ice, and I no longer need to turn the porch light on when I turn the dog out at 6:15 a.m. Most importantly, the more varied, frequently dramatic daylight of the springtime months make for more interesting visual opportunities. The air and the skies are more changeable for a while.

The month of March has gotten steadily more important to me as I go through more and more annual cycles. I've come to like the folksy old "in like a lion, out like a lamb" mantra—I'm always rooting for the lamb. We supposedly have a big storm on the way that might hit us on Saturday, so the lion has still got its hold on us. But the lamb is coming. I did see a kid walking from school in shorts and a T-shirt the other day. But the ground was covered with snow and it was in the 30s (about 0°C) so he was just being a tough guy.

Robins, before- and after-work sunlight, and kids with no coats on—the signs of spring in Wisconsin.

So–you ready? Got your gear in good shape, your cards cleared, bag packed (if you use one)? Straps on the cameras? Workflow in good trim? Lenses chosen for this year? A project or two, or at least some spots picked out you intend to hit? Some time cleared in the schedule for shooting?

My plans are to shoot 50 sheets of film this year with the view camera. But I don't have any ambitions for that work. That's just an exercise, to get conversant with the equipment and the materials, to start getting a feel for that way of working. I won't know whether I want to work with that camera seriously until another year has gone by. Meanwhile, I still haven't decided what I'm going to shoot with this spring. I have a few promising pictures from the little Panasonic that seem to be pointing in one promising direction, and I have the K-5 to get to know. And I now have several medium format film cameras, and have been thinking about doing some serious work with one of those. I need to get all that sorted out for this year. It's time.

Midsummer, for me, is nearly as bad as midwinter for shooting. Not quite as dull, and certainly not as dark. But not as good as spring or fall. Photographers talk about the "golden hours"—the transition times between day and night. But the transition between seasons is equally important as an opportunity for photography.

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Featured Comment by Bryan Hansel: "I'm a little further north of you on the north shore of Lake Superior, and, although I'm looking forward to warmth, I'm sad that winter is leaving. This winter offered lots of interesting ice formations, open water and some of the best winter sunsets out of the last few years. It's been a great winter for Lake Superior landscape photography."

Mike replies:It's an interesting feature of photography that virtually anything any given person can think of that's preventing him or her from photographing—night, winter, underwater, war—there are other photographers who actively seek out those conditions for their work. Even cloudiness—that would obviously stymie an astrophotographer, but the Bechers, who we were talking about a couple of posts ago, did all their work on overcast days against dull, featureless gray skies. I even knew a photographer who did a project in pitch darkness (bodies in a darkened room with infrared film. Her camera had a visually opaque red filter on it, and she aimed her zone-focused camera by ear. It was good stuff, too).

Featured Comment by Ken White: "I'm a little South of you in San Antonio, Texas. We are already well into spring weather with some 80 degree days in the last week. My plan for this year is to shoot with the Fuji X100 as my primary camera and blog about the results. Not exactly a one camera, one lens, one year commitment, but as close as I can muster. Can't wait to get the little guy. Happy Spring or Fall as the case may be."

Wednesday, 02 March 2011

Last week, in some comments to Mike's "Touch Once" post, I mentioned that I was on my fourth round scanning some of my film and that re-scanning my film seems to be something I have to do about every five years despite my best efforts to make scans so good that I could never imagine needing better ones. (Apparently, my wildest imaginings have a tangible expiration date.) This, of course, raised questions about how good a film scan really needed to be, and so here we are.

I'm close to wrapping up the task of scanning all the undigitized negatives of the photographs in my dye transfer portfolio. After several weeks of work, I've got a folder of image files that's about 100 GB in size. That's what happens when almost all your work is medium format negative and you're scanning it at 16 bits per channel color depth at a pixel pitch of 4800 PPI. My average file size tops three quarters of a gigabyte. Shouldn't this be enough for anybody?

Well, I really hope so. I don't look forward to repeating any of this five years from now; I truly can't imagine why I would have to. The problem is that I'm pretty sure these aren't the best of all possible scans. That leaves the door open to the possibility that at some time in the future I will come up with some unimagined need that demands even better scans. Be afraid, be very afraid.

The problem lies in the resolution. Forty-eight hundred PPI crisply images film grain, but it doesn't actually resolve it. What's the distinction? Point your digital camera at the night sky and open the shutter for a few seconds. You'll photograph stars, but the stars themselves are thousands of times smaller than an individual pixel in your camera. The stellar image expands to fill a pixel with some average level of brightness, but it's not resolved.

1200 PPI scan (click on these images to see them larger; the auto-resizing of the blog software obscures the sharpness of the images a bit). You can image film grain at remarkably low scan resolutions, as these comparison photos of TMAX 100 film scans show. An image of film grain, though, is not the same as resolved film grain.

2400 PPI scan

4800 PPI scan

Film grain is extremely small, even in coarse-grained films. Forty-eight hundred PPI scans don't resolve it. What you get are little square pixel-sized blobs in place of the original grain that mimic the pattern of the grain.

So what? Well, there are some subtle kinds of image degradation that occur when you don't sharply resolve grain. Good darkroom printers are familiar with the effects that occur when a print is just a bit out of focus or made with a less than a top-notch enlarging lens. Edge acutance gets subtly altered. More visibly, tonality and gradation in the extreme highlights and shadows gets distorted or muddied, because those tiny individual film grains (or spaces between grains) have a disproportionate effect on tonal rendition at the extremes.

The situation is not quite the same for film scanners, but it's close enough that there are issues to worry about. The losses are small; I think they may never matter to me. But there's that demonstrated lack of future imagination.

How much scan resolution would it take to satisfactorily resolve the film grain? I don't really know. The late Bruce Fraser and I discussed this on occasion, and we guessed the scans would have to resolve in the 10,000–15,000 PPI range, but neither of us ran any tests. I'd be looking at 5–10 GB scan files, and that would give pause even to Lloyd Chambers' uber-Mac.

There are other practical issues. Scan pitch is not the same as scan resolution, It's only the upper limit on the resolution. The real resolution is somewhat less, due to losses in the optical train. (A cautionary note there for any readers who want to report on their ultra-high-resolution scans. Do you know what resolution you're really getting?) I'm fortunate. I've tested my Minolta Dimage Multi Pro scanner, and it resolves 4200 PPI in the center of the field and 3800 PPI at the edges. 80–90% of theoretical resolution at a scanner's upper limit is very good performance.

Thing is, if I had a scanner that delivered 10,000–15,000 pixels per inch, I have to come up with new measurement tools to find out what was actually resolved. Nothing in my experimental arsenal is good enough. For all I know, there aren't even any film scanners of any type out there that can resolve 10,000 PPI, manufacturers claims notwithstanding.

If the gods choose to smile on me, I'll never have to answer these questions. All I can know for sure is that there is information in the original negative that I'm not capturing in the scans, and all I can do is hope that I never need to care.

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Tuesday, 01 March 2011

Now this is clever. Made me smile. Assuming no foreknowledge and without Googling, any of you historians of photography care to take a guess as to what this is?

The title would give it away, so I'll post it later.

Mike(Thanks to Roni)

UPDATE: Well, I thought as I went to bed last night that I'd give a few more people a chance to guess, even though Rob Atkins had already correctly guessed by that time (he was the first, although his comment beat a reader named Dan by a mere four seconds). As you've seen if you've checked the comments, that backfired on me a bit! At least it proves many readers are well informed about the photographers of the Düsseldorf School. Here's the page that Roni originally sent me the link to.

By the way, the title of the Idris Khan piece is "Every...Bernd And Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholders." It's a composite, à la Corinne Vionnet, of the individual images in the Becher piece below, or one similar to it (I'm not sure).

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Featured Comment by Mike Sebastian: "Is it the Hindenburg? Or some other dirigible? Or maybe a front view of a submarine?"

Featured Comment by Ron: "I'll take a wild guess and say it's the atomic bomb 'Fatman' at the Trinity test site."

Featured Comment by Lynn: "A gas ball? Used to have one like this nearby painted like a supersize golf ball until they sold the land and removed it."

Featured Comment by David in Sydney: "Is it a view of the world from the moon showing the steppes?"

Featured Comment by Steven House: "Back of someone's (famous) head looking out through some curtains."

Featured Comment by MJFerron: "Definitely a rocket propelled onion about to take off."

Featured Comment by aizan: "The world's biggest ball of twine/rubber bands/wire."

Featured Comment by Antony Shepherd: "Isn't that James Cagney at the top shouting 'Made it ma! Top of the world!' "

Featured Comment by richardplondon: " 'Look ma, I'm on top of the worrrld....' I forget the name of the film ['White Heat,' 1949 —Ed.]—James Cagney on top of a natural gas or oil storage tank, full of bulletholes (him, not the tank)."

Featured Comment by Tim Bradshaw: "A nuclear reactor?"

Featured Comment by Adrien: "A work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction...."

Featured Comment by Jim Freeman: "It's an x-ray of Mike's tooth, taken a moment before it blew."

Featured Comment by Roger Bradbury: "It's a water tower at the site where Kodak used to make Kodachrome. I can't wait, I'm going to have to Google it NOW!"

And the winning comment is....

Featured Comment by Kevin: "A Hilla and Bernd Becher print for collectors with limited wall space."

This is probably going to sound whiney and petty and very possibly not worth a blog post even on a slow day, but....

I bought a handful of DVDs the other day, mostly from the "40% Off" bin at the local Barnes & Noble, based on the recommendations people made here (for which thanks). Sitting here unwrapping them all (actually, I'm procrastinating by writing this post) reminded me of why I always hated buying music on CDs: they're so annoying to unwrap. I really dislike having to sit here and pick, pick, pick the infernal plastic sticky $#!+ off the cases. When I used to shop for CDs, if I found I'd picked up six or seven to buy, I'd go put four of them back because I knew I'd just get frustrated having to unwrap so many at once.

DVDs are the same way. The plastic sticks to the spines and the "theft prevention" strip tears at the most inopportune places. I should have put four of these back.

Petty. I told you. I am all thumbs, and have no fingernails.

If that's not bad enough, when you're finished getting all the annoying platic and sticky bits off the package, you end up with patches of adhesive residue on your brand-new jewel box or DVD case (see pics). The upshot is that you don't get a perfectly clean, pristine, new-looking CD or DVD even when it's brand new. There's always that last bit of adhesive gunk you can't rub off.

Thank god for downloads, both movies and music: no irritating unwrapping to do.

This should not bother me. And yet, it does.

Incidentally—this is a detail from the above shot, more or less full size once you click on it—when you have a camera that, handheld, will resolve printer's dots on a 4C DVD cover in what damn near qualifies as "dark" (this was shot in the light of a single 40-watt-equivalent energy-saving fluorescent bulb and an old CRT television set, EV 9 at ISO 6400), you have reached the point at which you no longer need a camera with more resolution or more speed. Crap. Incredible.

In fact, the single problem I've had with the K-5 is that, at extremely low light levels where the sensor is still completely unfazed, the AF throws up its hands and skulks off muttering to itself. My camera and lens won't autofocus accurately at low light levels (which I gather is a known problem), unless I used live view (LV). Even then, sometimes the light is too low and the AF gives up the fight.

This is Zer, a waitress my son worked with at my favorite restaurant, Yokoso, which to my great regret closed down last Saturday. The light level here was really low. Even though I've darkened this and muted the colors in Photoshop, it still looks brighter than the scene looked to the eye—this was taken in less than half as much light as the DVD cover above, ƒ/5.6 at 1/6th sec. at ISO 6400. This is literally right on the edge of the light levels at which the K-5 can focus—when I tried to take a similar shot of Zer with her friend Tia, I couldn't make the camera focus even using live view and with repeated tries. And yet the sensor is still doing reasonably well at this light level. I didn't quite nail the exposure for the look I wanted (I overexposed) but there's still some "guts" to the file for corrections. The autofocus just can't quite keep up with the sensor, is all. It's not that the AF is so bad, it's that the sensor is so good.

But I digress. Back to unwrapping DVDs. Grumble, grump, curmudge.

Mike

P.S. While I'm being cranky, can I just mention that I miss "And the winner is..."? The term of art is now apparently "And the Oscar goes to...." I liked the old phrase better. And while I'm on the subject, I have another suggestion for the Oscar people. I suggest that all the nominees perform their acceptance speeches in advance, and the Members of the Academy vote on whose is best, and then the Oscar goes to that person. For people whose best thing is drama, they sure do manage to give some undramatic speeches. The Curmudgeon-in-training's Award for best acceptance speech 2011? And the winner is...Best Director Tom Hooper.

Okay, okay, okay I'll shut up now. Back to pickin' at plastic. Sigh.

UPDATE: Out of seven DVDs, two had broken cases, one had a non-standard case, several had a problem with the plastic wrap sticking to the spine (not removeable with solvent), and one had a sheet of stiff clear plastic stuck to the back with that gummy clear stuff that looks like rubber cement.

Therefore, executive decision:

Original case

Replacement case

New vs. old x 7

The advantage of this is space savings. The disadvantage is resale value—nobody likes to buy used DVDs that aren't in their original cases. But I'm not a DVD collector (I own only a few handfuls) and four out of seven of these cost $7.99 or $8.99 from the sale bin. So I'll take the risk. The illustration is actually a little misleading since "Shooting the Past" is a 2-DVD set that I'll keep in its original packaging.

Incidentally, I'm up to two things here: looking at cinematography as a photographic art form (call it my quixotic little acknowledgement of still/video convergence in DSLRs), and researching a post about the best movies that feature photography or photographers—something I've been meaning to get around to for years now. Hence "Shooting the Past" and "City of God."

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Featured Comment by Doug Stocks: "I feel your pain. The adhesives used on CD/DVDs is almost too much to handle in the excitement of the unwrapping experience. Be patient, calmly use a penknife and cut the plastic through where one might think the thumbnail would suffice. Use the blade to peel back the adhering offense. Resist the temptation to scratch or pick at it in haste, as this will only permanently scratch the surface. Remove all plastic by gently lifting from the edges with the blade. Then remove any remaining adhesive with rubbing alcohol and paper tissue. Do not use any other solvents. The colder the harder. Slightly warming the label will help. I have removed literally thousands of labels from CD/DVDs and books—remainders, mostly (decades bookselling).

"Patience, warmth and alcohol, don't scratch at it and your life will be a slick and glossy manufactured dream."

Featured Comment by m3photo: "Hugh Laurie would make an excellent living by writing witty acceptance speeches. This one is a classic:

Featured Comment by Kent: "Residual adhesive: get yourself a little can of Zippo lighter fluid (it's naphtha)*, moisten a tissue with it, and rub that #$%()&! crud right off. Works like a charm, and I've never experienced it harming the plastic surface of the case. Try it...you'll like it. *I'm sure there are other sources of naphtha, but that's the one I use because it's available at just about any convenience store...at least where I'm at it is."

Featured Comment by Finger Pain: "While your complaint about CD wrappers is a curmudgeonly annoyance for you, for many of us with arthritis or similar disabilities it is a downright painful impediment to normal living. I have pretty severe arthritis in my hands and anything that involves twisting or tightly clenching my fingers really hurts (not to mention the challenge posed by the loss of dexterity that arthritis brings). The other day while on a plane flight I had to ask the stranger sitting next to me to unscrew the cap on my bottle of water. I should emphasize that I am not crippled by disfiguring rheumatoid arthritis or anything like that; I have the kind of osteoarthritis that plagues millions of our fellow human beings.

"I share your complaint about CD/DVD wrappers but, my particular nemesis is the plastic 'bubble pack' packaging that is so ubiquitously used to sell almost everything that is too small to require a proper box. I suppose this type of packaging is so popular because it displays the item well, makes theft more difficult, and protects its contents. An 'ideal' package, eh? For those of us with painful, clumsy fingers it presents a real obstacle to getting on with the day. I use a box cutter to try to surgically open these things with the least amount of manipulation, but still end up in pain and wishing the package designers a place in Dante's fourth level of Hell. As we boomers age, this sort of disability is going to become an issue for more and more people. I think the companies that come up with a better way will sell more of their products."

Mike replies:I actually splurged last year and got this pair of super-duper kitchen shears specifically thinking of those blister packs from hell (my father was a big fan of Henckels products). They work a treat, though I consider them extremely expensive. And they have to be washed by hand. And don't be fooled by the product description—they do not come apart for cleaning.